This girl is looking for some advice/wisdom/ideas/humor about your experience as a stay-at-home mom. Since I begin my new journey in 6 working days I figured I should seek the wisdom of those who have gone before me. God has blessed us all with different talents and abilities and I want to learn what has worked for you and what hasn’t. If you’re like me and need some ideas about what to talk about here are a few:

What happens in 8 days you ask? Something very, very exciting my friend! It is my last day of work!!! Well, at least my last day of paid work at an “official job”. I cannot even express how excited I am for April 25th to arrive. The joy of leaving has nothing to do with my job itself because I couldn’t ask for a better place to be working right now. They were amazing through my pregnancy (yes there has been a new baby since I last wrote over a year and a half ago), they have allowed baby girl to come to work with me, and I’m paid well for what I do. Mr. Man and I have decided that it’s time for a quality of life change, and God has opened up a way for us to financially make it work.

Summer is quickly approaching and if I kept working the kiddos would be stuck inside most of the summer and Mr. Man would have to try and single-handedly run the church and take care of them at the same time. Not a pretty picture for anyone. Not to mention that I’m exhausted between the night feedings, working, and trying pathetically to take care of our house. Nothing gets done, everything is a mess, I can’t find anything, and we are eating out way too much. Something had to give and thankfully it was my job.

So, in 8 days I quit my job, and in 15 days my new “job” begins. This is the part where I get nervous and a little overwhelmed. I’m going to be an official stay-at-home-mom. This is going to be hard work folks and I know it. I hesitate to say it’s a job because in my opinion it’s a responsibility. I chose to get married, and together we chose to have 4 children. Caring for our home and raising the kiddos is a responsibility, and one that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Up until now I don’t feel like I’ve done a very good job at either. I feel like I’ve been in survival mode since Ari was born and I am ready for that to stop. I want to find the balance of taking care of the necessities and enjoying my children.

I have some lofty goals in my head about things I hope to accomplish in this new phase of life. I’m still trying to make them into a plan and that’s something I’m not very good at either. Here are the first ones I have.

Keep working hard for 8 days until I’m officially done.

Enjoy 5 days of no employment before May begins.

Come up with specific goals and a plan for May.

I need to get myself on a schedule. I’d love to teach myself to wake up early but given my track record I feel that is a lost cause. The house needs to be cleaned up and purged of junk. We need to start eating at home more and eating better. I want to knit more. I need to sew Em some diapers, and there are tons of other sewing projects that need to be finished. Once the kids are out of school I want to play. I was miserable and pregnant last summer and we ended up being hermits. They need to be outside more and so do I. I also want to start teaching the kiddos to do more around the house and kitchen. For any of this to happen it needs to start with me. Now it’s time to think and pray about how this new chapter of my life is going to look. Hopefully there will be another update soon.

I always have grand aspirations to keep up with this blog but life just seems to take over. A lot has happened in the past 6 months. When I last wrote my husband left for training. A few weeks after my last post our house was hit by the April tornadoes in the south. Needless to say our life has been chaos ever since. Once everything with that settles I will tell the whole story.

In the meantime, how about a bit of what’s about to happen? In 11 days our family will be moving to Kansas. My husband accepted a position as an assistant/youth/everything pastor there. I am excited for the move. I am very sad to leave so much behind, but so happy to be moving on. Excited for my husband that he finally has a job doing what he’s been called to do. It’s going to be a whirlwind these next 2 weeks getting packed and moving out there. Somehow I hope to do a better job of keeping up with what’s going on in our lives.

Where has the time gone? This past month has flown by but felt like a long, long time too. I’m not quite sure how that works. Praise God today we are all healthy and the sun is shining! There will be some outdoor fun today if the kiddos can manage to behave themselves for more than 5 minutes.

I’m trying to figure out some stuff to get done in April and have decided to do 1 thing at a time. To many of you this makes perfect sense and you wouldn’t do things any other way. To those of you who are like me, I know you are sending well wishes my way. I have some focus issues that I will fully admit to and need to work on. I have 8 weeks before Mr. Man comes home and I haven’t gotten anything done, or at least it feels that way.

So for “Start Something Saturday” I’m going to work on getting this box of paper shredded and the basket of paper sorted. I have only 1 knitting project on needles that can be worked on too. I need to have something fun to try and keep my sanity.

This week has been rough. We are all trying to adjust to dad being gone. Kids are doing better every day. I’m just exhausted. My sleep schedule is all off and that’s not helping anything. I’m so thankful that everyone is healthy so that I can go to church again. Monday I will start going to the Rush too and that will be good for everyone.

I have gotten a few projects done. I’m following Project Simplify at simplemom.net. This week the project was to organize your clothing. I almost cried. It took me until today to work on it. Thankfully it didn’t take that long. I moved all of Mr. Man’s stuff to the other side of the closet, made a donate pile, threw some stuff away, bought a spacebag box that goes under the bed, and things are looking good. I have some laundry to do so I guess I’m not 100% done, but I can finish after laundry day. Some pictures will be at the end of the post.

I also finished a scarf that I’ve been working on since 2008. That was the most exciting thing to get accomplished. Maybe tonight I’ll be able to get some sleep.

Wow it’s been a long time again sine I’ve updated here. Life has been busy but there hasn’t been much to say. I’m hoping in the next 3 months there will be something to write about. Mr. Man is now a Chaplain in the Navy Reserves and leaves tomorrow for 12 weeks of training. I’m going to be on a 12 week adventure with the 3 kiddos. Please pray for us all.

I’m so excited for this new journey in our lives. Am I excited for my husband to be gone? No, but it means that we are finally moving forward in life. This 12 week adventure is just the beginning of times that he will be gone. I’m glad that we are starting this while the kids are so young so that they won’t know any other way of life. I just wish that we were moving with him, but that will come soon enough.

Praise God that I don’t have to work while he’s gone. I might be getting involved more at church with something, but I don’t think I will go back into the “real” work world for a while!! My goal is to get this house organized while he is gone. There will be painting, cleaning, donating, and building new stuff. We will be getting on a good schedule and I will be working out. These are very lofty goals for myself, but I hope that I can get a lot done..

Don’t worry I won’t get so busy that I don’t take time for myself. I have a list of people willing to watch the kids, parent’s night out, parent’s day out, and a few other thinks to make time for myself. Knitting, sewing and watching Doctor Who will be on the top of my list.

I hope to post pictures of my cleaning/crafting adventures and show how the kiddos are growing up. Wish me luck and send prayers my way.

It has been since January since I have updated here. Life has really taken over these past 10 months. I feel like I have been living in survival mode and barely making it. We are doing the same thing as always here. Taking care of the growing kiddos, working, trying to move forward in career stuff, and maybe squeezing in some fun here and there.

Mr. Man is still working on trying to become a Navy Chaplain. We went to an amazing retreat this weekend. I am so thankful for the people I met and the things I learned while there. I look forward to what lies ahead of us, but it’s been a struggle to get even here. Our biggest prayer right now is that all paperwork, interviews, and all other things needed for his Navy application get processed quickly. Once this happens we can start finding out more about training and where we might be going from here.

Along with the prayers for that, I would love for everything else to slow down a bit. Work has been miserable the past few months for both of us. We are very thankful for our jobs, but you can only take so much. With Christmas around the corner things are only going to get more stressful. So, if you are reading this and pray, please pray for these things for us.

The kiddos are growing like weeds. Ari will be 5 this month, Eli 3 1/2, and Ayden 18 months. I will get some updates in the near future. Maybe blogging will help elevate some of the stress. One can only hope that something will.

All hopes from last weeks post of getting a lot of crafty stuff done was crushed when I saw my work schedule for this week. I was scheduled for 5 days…5! I’m supposed to be working 3 maybe 4 if there’s a real need. Nope, the new manager was trying to give me more hours. If I wanted to work 5 days I would have never left the bank where at least I had benefits. Thankfully some people were wonderful and we were able to switch some days around so it won’t be so bad.

Nevertheless, I got a ton of cooking done yesterday. I had to pick up some baby food and found some great deals on some meat. The great deals meant I had to freeze it all or cook that day. I decided to cook.

Mr. Man made a burger. I was able to cook up some ground beef, chicken nuggets, chicken patties to freeze, chicken for tacos, and some beef strips. Tonight I made some muffins. I’m not so sure how the muffins are going to turn out. They are orange raspberry muffins but they kind-of turned blue-green in the oven. I’m sure they’re not bad, but it’s hard to want to eat something that looks like mold.

I was able to get a little knitting done this week. I’m working on too many projects but that’s how things always go. Here are two. One is a hat and the other is a pair of longies for Ayden. I made the longies with an extra high waist to try to keep diapers from sticking out of the back. This yarn is so wonderful I wish I would have made some mittens out of it for me. That’s about it for today. Maybe next week I’ll be able to get some sewing done.

I found this challenge at a new blog today and I’m going to try to stay on board with this one. You can read the details there but the basics are write 30 minutes one day a week and that’s it. I’ve wanted to keep up with my blog but can never think of what to say or find the energy to do it. Once a week for 30 min seems reasonable.

Right now our life has been about trying to keep the kiddos healthy. Poor Ayden has been sick off an on since October. He’s had swine flu, ear infection, upper respiratory infection, something like RSV, and has a stuffy nose again. I don’t hear any wheezing yet but I wouldn’t be surprised if I hear it tomorrow. If he gets sick again we will be going to the children’s hospital to make sure something serious isn’t hiding. He was 5 weeks early and spend 2 weeks in a level 2 NICU so his lungs aren’t as strong, but this little boy needs to get healthy.

I’ve enjoyed working at Panera. It’s nice spending more time at home trying to get things organized and clean. Mr. Man has gotten down to weight to do his testing for Navy Chaplaincy. Now to get that pastoral experience.

This year for my “resolutions” I’m trying to do a few things each month rather than some grand big year goals that I will never do. For January the goals have been

No fast food

Get at least 7 hours of sleep

Drink more water

I’ve done good at the no fast food. I must admit I have had the total of a whole grilled sandwich from Chick-fil-a, but I have resisted their wonderful waffle fries. Sleep comes and goes. I’ve been really bad at drinking more water too. One out of 3 isn’t bad. I’m still thinking of what February is going to bring.

I’ve been working on some crafty things and I hope to get some pictures up at next weeks 30 minutes.

Thanks so much to everyone who commented on my last post. Your words were very encouraging, and Mrs. Lemon you kept me from stopping cold turkey thank you. I was going to quit and I’m so glad I didn’t because last friday I QUIT MY FULL TIME JOB!!!!

God worked it all out! Mr. Man and I have been working swing shifts for about 4 years now and we have had enough. Early last week we decided that somehow we would make the money work out and I would look for a part-time job. Wednesday night after church I put in an application at Panera and Target. Since Panera is on the way to my current job I stopped by to talk with a manager. Turns out they are looking for some part-time help and she understood my reasons for leaving a full-time job, and major pay cut for better quality of life. She told me to come and talk to the general manager. I stopped by after work and was hired on the spot! In less than 24 hours I had a new job! If that isn’t God confirming what you’re supposed to do I don’t know what is.

Now starting in November I’ll be working about 3-4 mornings a week. I’ll still have to pump a bit, but it won’t be 2-3 times every day. I am so glad I didn’t stop nursing quite yet. All that said, this little boy I’m feeding turned 6 months today and his 2 bottom teeth have finally cut through. I’ve never nursed long enough for the other 2 kiddos to have teeth. I’ll just have to see how things go.

Needless to say I’m very happy to be working less and spending more time with my family. More on my grand plans for being home more to come later.

Our adventure today was going to the Tennessee Aquarium for Ari’s 4th birthday. I’ll get more pictures up later.

I want to say hi to the visitors from Small Notebook! If you haven’t visited that blog it’s wonderful.

Have a great night y’all!

She was oh so happy that we took the time to make this day special. Oh to be 4.